Sr. Data Engineer, AI-Augmented

Sammons Financial Group

West Des Moines, Iowa

JOB DETAILS
SALARY
$84,721–$176,501 Per Year
SKILLS
1st Level Support, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Communication Skills, Computer Programming, Computer Science, Continuous Improvement, Data Collection, Data Management, Data Quality, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Enterprise Data Integration, Health Plan, Homeland Security, Human Resources Management, Identify Issues, Incident Response, Information Science, Life Insurance, Machine Tool, Management of Information Systems/Technology (MIS), Microsoft Windows Azure, Multitasking, On Call, Operational Improvement, Operational Support, Operations Management, Presentation/Verbal Skills, Problem Solving Skills, Production Support, Programming Languages, Python Programming/Scripting Language, Recruiting/Staffing Agency, Reliability Engineering, Reporting Dashboards, Right-Sizing, Root Cause Analysis, SQL (Structured Query Language), Snowflake Schema, Social Security Administration, Team Player, Time Management, Warehousing, Wiki, Writing Skills
LOCATION
West Des Moines, Iowa
POSTED
13 days ago
Overview:

Enterprise data engineers in this role support the real-time data movement and shared data services layer of the Enterprise Data & Integration platform. This team is responsible for the day-to-day operational health of Change Data Capture feeds, business event streams, Kafka topics, Snowpipe ingestion, and shared data services that enterprise data products depend on.

 

This is a hands-on operational engineering role focused on production support, incident response, root-cause analysis, reliability, and continuous improvement. The ideal candidate is calm under pressure, methodical in troubleshooting, comfortable working across logs, SQL, Kafka, Snowflake, and Azure, and able to drive complex data pipeline incidents to resolution.

Responsibilities:
  • Monitor the health of CDC pipelines and shared data services in production, including consumer lag, throughput, error rates, dead-letter queues, Snowpipe backlogs, and end-to-end latency.
  • Triage and resolve data pipeline incidents by identifying whether the issue is related to the source system, data movement layer, Kafka, Snowpipe, Snowflake, or downstream consumers, and engage the appropriate owners.
  • Serve in the on-call rotation for SEV-1 and SEV-2 data incidents in alignment with the Data Pipeline Incident Response runbook.
  • Diagnose schema-evolution issues in Confluent Schema Registry, including incompatible changes, deserialization failures, and consumer poison messages, and coordinate fixes with publishing teams.
  • Replay, reprocess, and backfill data through Kafka and Snowpipe when upstream systems recover from outages, resend data, or provide corrections.
  • Investigate data-quality issues reported by consumers, including missing records, duplicates, late-arriving data, out-of-order events, and mismatched counts between source systems and hist_* / curr_* zones in Snowflake.
  • Tune and right-size pipeline components for performance, reliability, and cost efficiency, including Kafka partitions and consumers, Snowpipe warehouses, and Azure Function scale settings.
  • Maintain and improve operational tooling, including monitoring dashboards, alerting, and replay utilities across Confluent, Snowflake, Azure Monitor, and Application Insights.
  • Write, maintain, and improve operational runbooks so recurring issues can be resolved faster and more effectively by first-level support teams.
  • Apply small code and configuration changes to Python services, Azure Functions, SQL, and dbt models in support of operational fixes, while partnering with build-side data engineers on larger enhancements.
  • Manage routine platform operations, including schema registry hygiene, topic lifecycle, credential rotation, certificate renewals, and access requests via Ivanti.
  • Communicate clearly with application teams, data product owners, and business stakeholders during and after incidents, including status updates, root cause summaries, and follow-up actions.
  • Contribute to postmortems and feed lessons learned back into engineering standards, support practices, and the EDI Architecture Wiki.
Qualifications:
  • College Degree in the field of computer science, information science, management information systems Preferred
  • Minimum 8 years' IT development experience or equivalent Preferred
  • Effective verbal and written communications skills and the ability to communicate with business partners and other IT staff
  • Problem solving skills sufficient to perform research and recommend a proposed solution to problems
  • Able to work on multiple tasks and meet established deadlines
  • Able to effectively direct and coordinate the work of other team members on a project without having HR management responsibility for them
  • Knowledge of computer programming languages as required for the system
Suitability Requirements: • Criminal background check required.
Pay Range: USD $84,721.00 - USD $176,501.00 /Yr. Pay Transparency Verbiage: Range includes data points from multiple labor markets. Specific range is dependent on the labor market where the incumbent will be hired to perform the position. Starting salary is dependent on candidate qualifications and experience. For a narrower salary range specific to your labor market, please inquire. Company Information: •Comprehensive health coverage for you and your family, including Medical, Dental, Vision, HSA & FSA options, and term life insurance.
Competitive compensation with a performance-based incentive program tied to clear goals and individual and/or company success.
Invest in your future with our 100% company-funded Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), plus automatic enrollment in our 401(k).
Work–life balance that means something. Friday afternoons off year-round, generous paid time off, and paid holidays.
Commit to your growth with paid development time, tuition reimbursement, and professional development opportunities across industry, individual, and leadership programs.
Make an impact beyond the workplace through volunteer time off, and our company nonprofit matching gift program, supporting the causes that matter most to you.
An ownership culture that inspires; join a connected, values-driven workplace where employees take accountability, support one another, and are empowered to do their best work—together shaping our future shared success.
Work Authorization/Sponsorship: At this time, we’re not considering candidates that need any type of immigration sponsorship now or in the future or those needing work authorization for this role (This includes, but is not limited to students on F1-OPT, F1-CPT, J-1, etc.) Additional Information:

Sammons Financial Group Is An Equal Opportunity Employer
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

ADA
Sammons Financial Group is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in all aspects of the employment process. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation at any stage of the application or hiring process, including navigating our website or applying for a position, please contact HR@sfgmembers.com or call 800-728-2987.

E-Verify
Sammons Financial Group participates in E-Verify and will provide the Social Security Administration and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security with information from each new employee's Form I-9 to confirm work authorization.

Policy for External Search Firms and Agencies
Sammons Financial Group maintains an internal Talent Acquisition function and does not accept unsolicited resumes or candidate submissions from search firms, staffing agencies, or other third-party recruiting vendors. Please review our Recruitment Agency Policy for additional information here.

About the Company

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Sammons Financial Group